“The majority of the expansion was to accommodate more assembly space” and was driven by new business the company captured “in the finished device category of the general medical/surgical market,” President and CEO Matt Jennings told Plastics News.

The expansion adds 10,000 square feet of space, including 2,000 square feet of clean room space. That boosts the size of the plant in the town of Trhove Sviny — which is just north of the Austrian border — to 38,500 square feet.

A small portion of the expansion will be for multivac packaging lines, Jennings said.

“The expansion is a significant increase in our capability to manufacture and assemble finished products ... as well as in our process engineering capabilities,” Jennings said. The expansion was completed earlier this quarter.

By the end of February, employment at the plant will be 60 percent higher than it was last spring, Jennings said. Current employment is 138. “We are hiring.”

The company’s Czech Republic plant has Class 7 and 8 clean rooms, plastic and liquid injection molding capabilities, and the ability to assemble finished medical devices. It also does catheter extrusion.

“Our Czech facility is an important part of our strategy of providing state-of-the-art medical facilities, equipped with the latest technologies, to our customers in regions around the world,” Jennings said.

Phillips-Medisize has annual sales of nearly $500 million, with 75 percent of that coming from drug delivery, medical device and diagnostic products.

The company is headquartered in Hudson, Wis., and employs more than 2,100 in 19 locations throughout the United States, Europe and China. It also has design centers in Wisconsin, California, and the Netherlands.

Matt Jennings, president & CEO of Phillips-Medisize Corp., will speak at Plastics in Medical Devices 2013, scheduled for May 13-15 in the Boston suburb of Waltham, Mass.